1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated circuit device, such as a semiconductor integrated circuit device, which is manufactured, for example, by forming a plurality of integrated circuit elements on a silicon wafer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacture of such an integrated circuit device, the burn-in process is performed after forming the internal circuit of each integrated circuit element. This burn-in process is performed basically by driving the internal circuit in an operating condition similar to the real operating condition, with a purpose to find out a certain failure in this condition in the defective internal circuit, which is most likely to become defective in the early period of the actual usage of the manufactured integrated circuit element, so that the integrated circuit element including such a defective internal circuit may be distinguished from the integrated circuit element which does not include such a defective internal circuit. Accordingly, by performing this burn-in process and eliminating such a defective integrated circuit element, the above-mentioned failure found in the burn-in process, can be prevented from really happening in the actual usage of the manufactured integrated circuit.
In the manufacture of this kind of integrated circuit device, insulating belt portions are formed from electrically-insulating material, such as silicon dioxide (SiO.sub.2) on a wafer into a lattice shape, so as to make a plurality of rectangular wafer regions separated from each other by the insulating belt portions. Then, on each of the separated rectangular wafer regions, the integrated circuit element is formed. On each of the formed integrated circuit elements, there are formed electric source pads, for supplying a driving electric power to the integrated circuit element, and an internal circuit, to which the driving electric power is supplied via the electric source pad, for performing a predetermined operation by use of the supplied electric power.
At the stage that the formation of a plurality of integrated circuit elements are completed on the wafer in this manner, the burn-in process is performed. More specifically, the burn-in process is performed by use of the exclusive burn-in device, namely, by connecting the connecting socket of the burn-in device to the electric source pad of each integrated circuit element.
In the case that the integrated circuit device to be manufactured is a microprocessor device or a logic array device, when the integrated circuit element is set to the burn-in device for the burn-in process, an automatic setting apparatus is not utilized. Instead, a manual setting operation is performed to set the integrated circuit element to the burn-in device. In this operation, the type of manufacture of the integrated circuit device, has disadvantages of increasing the manufacturing time and cost.
Further, when the dynamic burn-in process is performed to the integrated circuit device, the proper electric connections must be realized by connecting each of the integrated circuit devices, respectively to each connecting socket equipped on another exclusive dynamic burn-in device. This results in the drastic increase of the difficulty and time of the manufacture.
Furthermore, in the case of performing this dynamic burn-in process, it is necessary to use such a dynamic burn-in device process, it is necessary to use such a dynamic burn-in device as can be realized by employing a rather sophisticated computer etc., and to externally control the internal circuit according to a predetermined program so as to operate the internal circuit in a condition similar to the real operating condition.
In this manner, the burn-in process including the dynamic burn-in process, can be performed with respect to the integrated circuit device, so that the defective integrated circuit device can be prevented from being produced as a final product, according to the above mentioned related art.
However, according to this related art integrated circuit in association with this related art burn-in process, since the burn-in device is furnished with a computer etc. to execute the predetermined program, the construction of the burn-in device becomes large and complicated as well as expensive. Since the rather complicated program is to be performed under the control of the external burn-in device, the burn-in process itself becomes a time and cost consuming process.
In this manner, the related art integrated circuit device, in association with its burn-in device, has a serious problem that it requires the time and cost consuming burn-in process.